Happy New Year (fingers firmly crossed)

I’m seriously in need of a Happy New Year, folks. I’m not even joking. Last year, although it had a few highlights, was so full of sturm und drang that my head’s still reeling, and if I have to face another one like that in the next, I may as well hit the bottle now. (Which is never a bad idea, to tell the truth.) Even so, I choose to remain an optimist, and it shouldn’t be as hard as some people believe. Think about it: why is it we so readily accept the bad stuff, but when something really good happens, it’s a miracle! Maybe because we’re just too conditioned to think we deserve less, that wanting more is unrealistic. If that’s true, then maybe it’s time to get greedy–not for more materialistic things, but greedy for more happiness in our lives. For more appreciation of the simple things, for more living in the moment, for more doing all those things now you told yourself you’d do later, you know, in that perfect nether-time that never comes. Maybe we should listen to Eleanor Roosevelt who once advised: You must do the thing you think you cannot do. They say the secret to a happy relationship is to continually surprise each other. Maybe in the New Year we should apply that to the most important relationship in our lives, and do the things that will surprise ourselves.